Ignorance is Bliss
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: Claire and Joe spend the night together after Agent Hardy's visit to campus in 2003. "You know I love you to death, right?" One-shot. Mainly Joe/Claire, with mentions/implications of Claire/Ryan.


**Title:** Ignorance is Bliss (1/1)

**Author: **fais2688

**Pairings**: Claire Matthews/Joe Carroll, and brief mentions/implications of Claire Matthews/Ryan Hardy

**Rating:** T/M-ish

**Summary:** 2003. Claire and Joe spend the night together after Agent Hardy's visit to campus. "You know I love you to death, right?" One-shot.

**Inspiration:** Based off of the two flashbacks in 1x01.

**No spoilers.**

**Author's Note:** This story began as a flashback in a later chapter of my story _So Happy Together. _Originally, the flashback was supposed to be Claire/Ryan, but then someone mentioned they wanted to see happy Joe/Claire, and while I was immediately averse to the idea, it didn't leave my head. I soon realized, considering when the flashback takes place, that something involving Joe would actually make more sense than something with Ryan. So I started writing it…and then I just couldn't _stop _writing it. I had to cut off the flashback at a certain point, because it had gotten much too long, but I kept what I didn't use in the story on another document. That eventually turned into this one-shot.

**I was never aware you could **_**actually**_** ship two conflicting couples before I wrote this. I always thought people who did that were stupid, or that they really did prefer one couple over the other. As for me, I'm definitely the latter. I honestly think this story just stemmed from how much I love James Purefoy. Because, let's be honest—I DON'T ship Joe and Claire in the show. But James and any living, breathing human being? (Or any dead one. Or an inanimate object. Or himself.) Done. I'm sold.**

Please enjoy.

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_Ignorance is truly_

_the most wonderful bliss._

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_2003_

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"Mm," she whimpered softly, her nails digging into his skin as her hands gripped his back. Her voice rose as she felt her pleasure mount. "Joe—"

"Shh," he whispered, not even flinching at the pain, "we don't want to wake him."

"He wakes us every—_night_," she gasped the last word as he moved inside her.

He grunted softly, nodding as he rocked his body into hers. "Yes, but will—waking him up—really serve a purpose?" He groaned low in his throat, pressing his mouth to hers to stifle the noise. "It would just…punish us in the end," he panted against her skin after their lips broke.

She didn't reply, but wrapped her arms more securely around his back, buried her hands in his hair, and pressed her face into his shoulder to stifle her gasps and muffle her shouts. She could feel her heart beating rapidly beneath her breast and feel that hot flush that flared on her skin only at times like these, and she knew her orgasm would be coming soon now. With every push of his body inside hers, she got the smallest taste, the weakest fluttering of her inner walls as they clung to him, desperate to keep him close as he moved in and out.

When it finally came, she squeezed her eyes shut, her back bowing up from the bed. His mouth was on hers, stifling the cry of completion she nearly let out in full volume before she could even think to quiet herself. She wrapped her arms around him more tightly, clinging to his body now as if it were her life raft. She could feel his hands slide underneath her back, hauling her sweat-slicked body against his as he pushed inside her a few more times before hitting his peak as well.

She could feel it as he as he came inside her, and she threw her head back, panting as a delirious smile shone on her face. Joe pressed his lips to her throat, her neck, wrapping his hands around her and pulling her body right up against his in a tight hug as they both let themselves come down slowly from their highs.

She collapsed back against the bed when she couldn't sit up any longer, and he fell down too, landing beside her against the pillows. For a few minutes, all that could be heard in the room were the sounds of their ragged breathing and the soft crackle of static from the baby monitor on the bedside table.

Claire looked over at it when their was a particularly sharp burst of static. She yawned, cupping a hand over her mouth as her eyes drifted over to the clock behind the device. "It's been nearly three hours," she murmured sleepily, reading the time. "I should feed him…" She yawned again. "If he's hungry…"

"I'll get him," Joe offered at once, groaning slightly as he got out of bed.

"No," Claire protested, shifting in bed to stop him, "Joe, I'll go—"

He shook his head. "You stay. I'll check on him."

"If he's asleep," Claire began.

Joe smiled, catching her eye over his shoulder as he pulled on a pair of sweatpants before leaving the room. "I know, I know. Let him sleep."  
She smiled lazily at him from the bed, whispering her thanks softly as he left.

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He was gone for less than three minutes before he returned, but in that short span of time, alone in their bedroom late at night, Claire's mind had wandered. It did not peruse through happy subjects, and by the time her husband reappeared, she wasn't smiling as she had been when he'd left, and she barely even seemed to hear him when he spoke.

"Joey's fine," he called softly, closing the door behind him. "He's sleeping like…" He smiled, recalling the obvious idiom. "Well, a very tired baby."

"Good," Claire murmured.

Joe looked over, surprised at the heaviness in her tone. She sounded so subdued now, so different from the smiling, warm woman he'd left only minutes ago. He stared at her, noting the way she laid in their bed with the covers drawn close around her. He could tell by the look of concentration on her face and the distant sound of her answer, that she was thinking deeply about something. He had a hunch he knew what it was.

He didn't speak again until he'd walked around to his side of the bed. "You okay?"

Claire turned her head towards his voice quickly, as if surprised to see him there. "Yeah," she mumbled. "Fine." She watched as he settled in beside her in silence, and when he spread out and arm, inviting her to move closer, she did so, snuggling her body against his.

"What's on your mind, love?" he wondered, pressing a kiss to her forehead as she shifted into his arms. "Tell me."

"Just… All those girls," she replied softly, sighing heavily. Joe didn't need to ask what girls she was referring to; everyone in the state—and probably the country, by now—knew their names. "It's…_terrible_. Awful. They're all so—so young. Eighteen, nineteen…" She looked over at her husband, her worried eyes meeting his sympathetic ones. "I remember when _I _was that age, and I can't… I can't believe they all died so young," she whispered softly. "And so _violently_." She glanced over at him again, half-curious and half-sick as she wondered nervously, "Did you know the killer's been… cutting out their eyes?"

Joe stared at her, surprise and concern flickering across his face. "Who told you that?" he asked, sounding almost as worried as she felt. "I don't remember seeing it in the papers."

"It was that FBI agent," Claire replied. "Ryan Hardy. He said it was withheld from the press," she added. She reached over, finding his hand and twining their fingers together. "I told him to get in touch with you, by the way. The moment he mentioned the eyes, I was reminded of the old man in _The Tell-Tale Heart,_ and then the narrator in—"

"_The Black Cat_, yes," Joe finished for her. From memory, he murmured, "'I grasped the poor beast by the throat, and deliberately cut one of its eyes from the socket'…" He sighed, squeezing her hand. "Well, the texts certainly fit the crimes, I suppose," he finished, and she could hear a strained sadness in his voice. "He came up to me between classes earlier and said he wanted to talk," he admitted, "but I didn't have time to hear about what. I told him I'd try to meet later in the week after all the department meetings." He sighed, rubbing the side of his face with a free hand. "I didn't know…" he trailed off, shaking his head.

"So you really think it all has something to do with Edgar Allan Poe?" Claire asked. She looked up at him, both curious and concerned. "Do you think, one of your students, maybe…" She swallowed, knowing the horrors that she was implying but unable to leave the question unanswered. "Was—Was one of them extremely fascinated by Poe? One of the boys, maybe—?"

"I don't know," Joe replied, and she watched in secret disappointment as he brooded over the topic in silence. She knew she shouldn't have expected for him to have an answer, but he always seemed to have an answer to everything, so why not this? For a foolish minute, she'd actually thought that maybe he'd be able to crack the case where all the local police and even the FBI had failed, but she knew that even some things were out of his realm of knowing.

"It could be anyone, I suppose," he continued after a minute. "But I can't pick out anyone for certain. And there are crimes on campus all the time," he added.

"Not like this," Claire pointed out.

He shook his head. "No," he murmured softly. "Not like this."

"Do you think they'll catch him?" she asked, unable to keep the strain of apprehension out of her voice.

Joe nodded, pressing a reassuring kiss to her shoulder. "It's the FBI. They catch everyone, don't they?"

"But they haven't caught him yet," Claire reminded him. "And it's been so long since that first body was found…"

"Well, I'm sure they'll catch the killer soon enough," he murmured. "Agent Hardy seems perfectly capable," he added lightly, no doubt trying to transition them away from such ugly topics at this time of night.

Claire smiled reflexively to herself at the mention of him, remembering her conversation with the federal agent earlier that morning. _You're married?_ She pressed her lips together, attempting to stifle her laughter and keep it to herself. It didn't work.

"What're you giggling about over there?" her husband wondered, craning his neck to catch her eye with half-smile playing on his lips in response to her amusement.

"Nothing," she muttered, still laughing slightly. "Just…" She shook her head, smiling to herself. "He hit on me a little bit," she admitted. "That Agent Hardy."

The bed shifted—and her along with it—when Joe sat up. "He _what_?"

She smirked, amused and silently flattered by his response, almost as much as she'd been by Agent Hardy's interest earlier in the day. "It was nothing, Joe."

"You said he _hit_ _on you_."

"Yes," she allowed, "but I didn't say he _hit_ me, so you can calm down." She sighed, rolling her eyes at his outrage, but unable to wipe the smile from her face. It had been a long time—definitely before she'd had Joey—since something like this had come up between them. She silently congratulated herself on how quickly she'd managed to loose all that baby weight. "It wasn't a big deal, okay?" she told her husband. "He was interested for a moment or two, and like _any_ guy would, he made sure to let me know—" she heard Joe exhale in annoyance and she smiled "—but he backed off when he heard I was already taken. That's _it_," she finished pointedly, letting Joe know it was time to drop the subject while also secretly hoping he wouldn't forget so quickly.

"Do I need to rough him up for it?" her husband wondered after a few seconds, seeming to grudgingly buy into the reality and now wanting to play his own part.

Claire snorted, laying her head against his chest again. "Oh, yes," she encouraged. "Definitely. That's a wonderful idea. Go beat up a federal agent for flirting with your wife." She shook her head. "You'd get yourself put in jail, Joe—and probably ripped to pieces in the process."

"It'd be worth it."

"Not in the very least," Claire countered at once.

He smiled at her for a moment before nudging her with his arm. "So…" He drew out the word as he eyed her, his eyebrows rising suggestively for a split-second. "Did you flirt back?"

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, stop it."

"You're smiling," he observed, amusement turning up his lips. "You did, didn't you?" He smirked, nudging her again. "You little minx."

"I did _not_."

"Come on, I know you did," he teased. "Tell me!" he implored her with a laugh. "I want to know! How far did you lead the poor bastard on?"

"I didn't lead him anywhere!"

He grinned, leaning over to kiss her. "_You_," he murmured against her lips, "are _such_ a little liar, my dear."

She smiled against his mouth, replying as he pulled back, "And you're _unbelievably_ insecure. Honestly, Joe." She shook her head, seeming to silently as him how he could think any of what he was implying was the truth.

He shrugged in response, pulling back. "What? I'm not allowed to be worried when my wife flirts with another man?"

"For the _third _time, I _did not _flirt with him." She sighed, shaking her head. After a moment, a small smile turned up her lips as she pushed herself up, moving over and laying her body atop his. She rested her chin on his chest as she looked at him. "You know I love you to death, right?" she wondered quietly, her eyes never wavering from his.

Joe stared down at her for a split-second before a smile tugged up the corners of his mouth. "…Maybe I could use a little reminder," he admitted finally.

She grinned, knowing he was fishing for it and yet happy to let him have it. She stretched her lean body over his so their mouths could meet. She closed her eyes as they kissed, focusing on the warm touch of his right hand against her cheek and his left stroking the skin of her back lightly. Her breasts dangled over his bare chest, brushing against his torso as she maneuvered her legs on either side of his body.

When their kiss broke, he opened his eyes slowly to find hers staring down at him. She seemed to have been waiting for him to open them and look at her, for the moment their eyes locked, she spoke: "Do you… Do you _really_ want a reminder?" she asked, her voice suddenly hushed well beneath its previous decibel.

Joe stared up at her, his eyebrows drawing together in mild confusion. "What do you mean?"

Claire swallowed, clearing her throat softly as she wondered, "Do you… Have you ever thought…" She closed her eyes, taking a moment to breathe. When she opened them again, they filled with his concerned gaze before her, and couldn't help but blurt, "Do you want another baby?"

Joe stared at her in shocked silence for so long that she nearly told him to forget about it. She had even opened her mouth to tell him _Never mind_, when he asked, "Do you?"

She nodded at once, too nervous to beat around the bush any longer. "Yeah. I do." She licked her lips, glancing over her shoulder at the door. "I know Joey's… barely over a year old, but…" She shrugged, a happy smile blooming onto her face at once, even as she simply contemplated their possible future. "I've been thinking…"

"Let's do it."

Claire blinked mutely in response to his immediate answer, staring at him surprise for a moment before letting an enormous grin stretch across her face. "_Really_?" she couldn't help but ask.

"Yes, really," he replied, smiling back. He reached out, pulling her close for a kiss. "I'd love to have another one, especially if you want it."

"But you're sure?" Claire pressed. "Because if we do this now, then I'd have to take off more work; it would be the second year—"

"You can do research," he offered at once. "Apply for a grant, work from home." He smiled, wrapping his arms around her. "We'll figure it out."

She beamed, moving forward to kiss him firmly on the mouth again. "Love you," she whispered between kisses. "So much."

He grinned, pressing his lips to her cheek. "Maybe we should talk about kids more often," he joked, pulling her body against his. "If it puts you in this good of a mood." She smiled back, cupping his cheeks and splaying her fingers across his familiar face. She stared down at him for a long moment before the happiness suddenly evaporated from her expression.

He stared at her in wordless concern, not knowing what to say and knowing even less as to what had upset her. He didn't have to wait more than a minute before he found out.

"Can… Can we wait a little bit, though?" she wondered in a tentative whisper. "Just until… until all the murders are over?" She looked down, as if embarrassed for asking, or assuming her want would be denied. "I… I already feel bad about being happy now, with you and with Joey, when so many other parents are grieving… But if I get pregnant again… They just lost their babies, and I…" She shut her eyes, not wanting to say it.

"We can wait."

Her eyes flickered open at his quick response, and promptly searched his face for the truth. "You're sure?"

He smiled, cupping her cheek. "First you propose a second baby, then you pump the brakes. Yeah, I'm sure."

Her eyes widened. "Wait, so you don't want—" She broke off when he put a finger to her lips.

"Of course I want it," he soothed her softly. "Claire, of course I do. But… Maybe it's a good idea if we take our time. And I agree about the murders," he added, shifting his hand to cup her neck. "I wouldn't want to find out you're pregnant while those poor girls are being hurt, either."

Slowly, a relieved smile worked it way back onto Claire's face. "So we're… we're on the same page, then?"

He nodded. "We are." He leaned forward, kissing her briefly. "But let's talk about it again once the investigation's over, okay?"

She nodded. "Okay."

They held each other for a few minutes more, wrapped in that warm, familiar bubble of happiness that seemed to be surrounding them constantly these days. It worried Claire sometimes, just how happy she could feel when she knew others were experience unimaginable misfortunes… She closed her eyes and, just like she'd done every night since the killings had begun, said a silent prayer, calling on her long-lost childhood religion and hoping that maybe God would see past her abandonment of the faith and protect the young girls on campus nonetheless.

Her eyes were drooping, and becoming harder to open every time they closed, as she lay back against the bed. Her head was nestled against her husband's shoulder, and she could feel the comforting warmth of his body so clearly that it nearly made her smile. She would have, if she didn't feel herself slipping away into unconsciousness second by second.

She yawned, pressing her forehead against his shoulder as she whispered, just loud enough for Joe to hear, "I hope they catch him soon. The killer." She yawned again, and smiled ever so faintly to herself as she let her imagination run wild at all the possibilities that would make themselves known to her once the murderer had been caught. Her mind filled with images of positive pregnancy tests and maternity clothes; of cribs and swaddled newborns. Of a brother or a sister for Joey. Of happiness.

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It wasn't until the next morning that the sorrow returned, and with it, the realization that she'd never heard Joe's reply to her last words before she'd fallen asleep. She stared at the newspaper as it rested on their kitchen table, letting the images splashed across the front page hit her like a punch in the gut. She wondered if anything Joe might've said to her last night would have made her feel better this morning as she stared at all that remained of yet another murdered co-ed: a smiling yearbook picture and a story of her brutal demise splashed across the day's front page like it was entertainment.

Though the article made no mention of it, Claire was somehow certain that the eyes had been removed again. She closed her own, trying not to imagine it, as she repeated her silent prayer of protection, this time including a line asking for forgiveness for both herself and her husband. Last night, while she had been safe and warm at home, curled up in bed with her husband, with their baby boy just a few hundred feet away, another nineteen-year-old girl was stabbed to death mercilessly and then—Claire knew it in her bones now—relieved of her eyes. She'd been killed—_murdered_—and what had Claire been doing?

She scanned the paper for the time of the crime, realizing with what seemed to be an ever-growing feeling of sorrow and guilt that the murder seemed to have occurred only a few hours after she and Joe had gone to sleep. She shut her eyes, taking a deep breath. Last night, while that girl had been attacked and tortured and _butchered _by some madman, she had been lying happily in bed. She'd been making love with her husband and discussing having another baby with him and falling asleep in his arms—she'd been _safe_—and all the while, that poor girl had been put through such hell that it made Claire physically sick to contemplate it.

She snatched the paper off the table, unable to look at it anymore, and tossed it into the recycling bin in the corner of the room. She could feel her blood heating with anger now. When was it going to stop? Now nine girls were dead. When would the killer have enough? Would he ever? She rubbed a hand over her brow, finding herself wondering yet again what Joe had said to her after she'd fallen asleep last night. She quickly pushed the thought away. It didn't matter what he'd said. What had happened had happened, and any words of comfort he might've offered her then would have proved to be meaningless by now. The girl would still be dead and Joe and she still would've squandered that teenager's last hours alive talking and laughing and teasing like nothing was amiss in the world. There was no doubt in her mind that he wanted the murderer—or, the serial killer, as the press was now almost gleefully calling him—caught as badly as she did, and that was all that really mattered anyway. She didn't need to hear his agreement to her calls for the man's arrested; of course he would agree. Everyone would agree. Who besides the murderer himself wouldn't want to see that sick criminal behind bars, anyway?

She sighed, walking over to the counter to pick up the coffee she'd made the moment she'd walked into the kitchen. It sat, lonely and lukewarm now, having been overlooked and subsequently forgotten once she'd caught sight of the morning paper's headlines. _Slayings continue at Winslow University. Body count reaches nine as of this morning. _She shut her eyes as she cradled the cup, but she couldn't get those pictures of that last smiling sophomore out of her mind. She supposed it was better to have a happy and healthy image of the girl in her head that whatever she might see if she looked at the body now, but from the descriptions of the crimes, it didn't take long for Claire's mind to make the correct adjustments. The girl's eyes were missing and her face was covered with red, dripping blood before Claire could force the image from her mind and open her eyes again.

When she heard the alarm on her phone chirp from across the room, she put her coffee cup in the sink and walked over to gather her jacket and purse. Even with all the deaths, the fear, the ever-present police officers, and now the presence of the FBI… Life went on. She had class in forty-five minutes and standing in her kitchen pondering over a dead girl and her own misplaced anger and guilt was no cause for tardiness. She thought of her husband and that FBI agent as she drove towards campus, and hoped against what she was sure was her better judgment that case would be easy to crack once the two talked. Maybe something Joe had to say would strike a chord with Agent Hardy, illuminate some piece of evidence he'd only glanced at or some suspect he'd only shared a few words with, and then the killer would be caught in a matter of hours.

Or maybe the murders would go on forever, and the monster would never be caught and brought to justice.

Claire shivered as she thought of that, despite the fact that it was warm in her car and the sun was shining down from a practically cloudless blue sky. No matter who the killer was—even if it was one of Joe's students, or possibly even one of her own—Claire knew she would rather see the boy arrested and sentenced to a long life in jail than escape from his crimes unscathed. Too much damage had been done, too much havoc had been wreaked, and too many tears had been shed for a college kid to escape his crimes just because he was a college kid.

_It's better to know, _she told herself as she walked from the parking lot and across the expansive courtyard to her classroom. _It's always better to know._ But with each step she took, she wasn't so sure. Partway through her walk, she caught herself moving to the other side of the sidewalk whenever a male student appeared to be walking towards her. As they passed, she couldn't help but eye each one critically, as if thinking that she would be able tell which one was the killer just by looking at him for the briefest second.

She didn't even let her guard down around the girls, and though she tried to go on her own way, she couldn't stand to watch them walking alone between classes. They looked so young, so little, and Claire couldn't help but think that she was giving the murderer an opportunity to snatch one if she didn't make sure they all found their groups of friends or entered a populated building. _As long as they're not alone, _she told herself again and again, but it was a feeble consolation. Three of the girls who had died a few weeks ago had all been murdered together, in the same room and around the same time, so it was clear that there wasn't exactly strength in numbers anymore.

Claire sighed, not wanting to know how hard a time campus security was having trying to mollify parents and protect their thousands of charges. For what had to be the hundredth time, she wondered why they hadn't shut down the school yet. As long as there were pretty girls here, it appeared there would be a killer as well, hunting each of them down and slicing them open until they ceased to exist. Why hadn't the university just sent them all home the second the first girl had been found, murdered and mutilated in her bedroom?

Claire knew the answer: Because then the police couldn't catch the killer. But they'd gone this long and failed to catch him already, and it begged the question: would they ever? She didn't like to lose faith in the local police—and certainly not the federal agents who were their last hope—but it had been months now, and she hadn't once heard a whisper that the case was case to being closed or that the criminal was about to be apprehended.

She thought of Joe as she made her way to her classroom—she had to practically run to get there on time after wasting so much time lurking around campus like a murderer herself—and she made a note to talk with him about that Agent Hardy later. It didn't matter if he had to blow off an evening class or skip out on a meeting or miss dinner—if Agent Hardy thought Joe might be able to help, then he had to help. Maybe this really was all connected to Edgar Allan Poe, and maybe Joe could point the federal agent in the right direction, towards one of his overly eager students. As painful as it might be for him, and for the campus as a whole, at least it would all be finally over.

Then everyone could take a breath and relax, thanking God that the killer's reign of terror had come to an end once and for all. Then all those childless parents could feel some relief, and fight for justice for their murdered children. All the girls on campus could stop looking over their shoulders in fear and start looking forward again with determination in their education and a clear path in life.

As she neared the door to her classroom, Claire almost smiled for the first time since she'd seen the newspaper headlines that morning.

And maybe after it was all over—after the killer had been convicted and the FBI had gone home and all the dust had settled—maybe she and Joe could talk about that second baby again.

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_Ignorance _

_is truly_

_the most wonderful bliss._

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**Author's Note:** It's probably weird to say I had fun writing this, but I really did. (It's even weirder—and downright wrong—considering where the flashback that inspired this is going to be placed in _So Happy Together, _but I'm trying not to think about that.) I think I had so much fun with this simply because I like writing Claire happy. She's so miserable _all the time, _and she deserves some happiness. Since this story is set in the past, it ended up being with Joe, but hey. I had fun writing it. I hope you fun reading it.

**I would love to hear your thoughts in a review or comment below. Thank you so much for reading.**


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